How I Learned Dragon & Tiger Qigong

One of the most important qigong sets that I teach is called Dragon and Tiger Qigong (chi gung or chi king).

The subject of Dragon and Tiger Qigong is appropriate for many reasons, but primarily because I see it having tremendous value in terms of the looming healthcare tsunami. It is one of the best qigong sets to learn to work with your etheric body and while in China I was taught it by an extraordinary woman…

There are several important benefits to this relatively easy qigong (chi gung) set, but it is known for its potency in fighting cancer in China, and all the gunk that comes with it. You may know that Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. I imagine the numbers are mimicked in Europe and other developed countries – so this is no small matter. I have students who’ve used Dragon and Tiger Qigong to get well.

Bill Ryan, one of my senior Energy Arts instructors actively teaches Dragon and Tiger Qigong in 5 to 6-day retreats in Northhampton, Massachusetts, which are described on his website www.MovingTiger.com. He is a highly qualified instructor and has helped many people to understand benefits of these simple yet powerful practices. There are currently 129 active Dragon and Tiger Qigong Instructors and you can search the Energy Arts instructor directory here to find an instructors near you.

Now…recently, the question keeps being brought up about how exactly I came to study Dragon and Tiger Qigong and I wanted to share that story with you here.

I had been a qigong tui na doctor for many years in the 1980’s in China and after I was studying in Beijing for about a year and completely socked in with Liu Hung Chieh, I thought that it might be good for me to do some other things.

Liu’s other disciple, Bai Hua, had a friend in Beijing who I also became good friends with. This guy came from a fairly famous family in Beijing, so I told him that I’d really like to see if there was any more training I could get to finish up my training in medical qigong (chi gung).

This friend went around and around trying to find out for me. You have to realize, this was only a few years after the Cultural Revolution. So he starts looking around and I believe he also had a relative who was in the field, so he knew who was who. The one name that came up that-possibly-I could talk to was Jiang Jia Hua. There were other people, but the odds were low simply because of the political situation.

Eventually, I met with the “old lady” as my wife and I dubbed her, and I had one stroke of luck that helped the situation. Her husband, who was an engineer in a major firm in Beijing, had received his education in the States, somewhere in the Midwest. He only had great things to say about the people, so she found it somewhat amusing to meet me.

Later she saw that I could do qigong and that I wasn’t blowing smoke. Seeing that I was really skilled was one thing, but then for some reason the subject of the came up.

She said she was interested in it and then she had her mind blown because I really knew about the I Ching. She started on a line of questioning: “How come you know so much about the I Ching?” etc. I said I learned it in Taiwan and Hong Kong and when I mentioned who my teacher was, she replied, “Your teacher is…who?” Liu-in the real community-was pretty famous. He didn’t consent to teaching just anybody.

We went back and forth and although I was studying with her, she was indecisive about what to do with me because she had put away Dragon and Tiger Qigong three or four years before I met her. After her husband died, she just didn’t want to engage the masses any more.

She trained 20,000 teachers by about ‘81 or ‘82. She had been Vice President of the All-China Scientific Qigong/Chi Gung Association. Her political ties were what allowed her to run a cancer clinic and teach. Bear in mind, Mao Tse Tung was really down on qigong as one of the “Four Olds” during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1974).

She thought my level of skill was equivalent to that of her better students, but she was still on the fence as to what to do with me. This went on for a couple of weeks. Then Liu caught a flu of some sort and I happened to mention the old lady to him.

He said if I wanted to bring her over, maybe she would give him some herbal meds. Liu wouldn’t go out and see anybody because he was an absolute hermit. I got the two of them together and then, you know the way it is with a child, “Look son, go out and play while the adults have a talk.” Basically, I was told to leave! I came back once or twice and they sent me away each time.

When I saw her the next time, she said, “If he’ll teach you, I’ll teach you.” And that was it. She then made me her formal disciple and taught me the whole bit including Dragon and Tiger Qigong. I got to work in cancer clinics even though it was very dangerous for me to be working in those clinics. At that time, it was the equivalent of a subversive act against the State.

I ended up studying Dragon and Tiger Qigong with the old lady for about a year and a half. She was a little fireball. This woman was in her late sixties, early seventies and she was a little dynamo, running all over the place and what not.

She was also one of the main students of a person called Guo Lin, who was known as one of the big qigong/chi gung cancer doctors. So, she was also teaching me on that level. Dragon and Tiger Qigong was just one piece of the puzzle. Most of what I learned was folded inside of it, which is why I wanted it to be a part of my core program even though it didn’t come from Liu’s material.

So that’s how I learned Dragon and Tiger Qigong. Now for years people have asked me to do a DVD for this set and we are in the final stages of production now…If you are interested in this DVD and have not already signuped for the prelist you may do so here:

Signup now for the launch of the new Dragon and Tiger Qigong DVD and to download two free chapters of the Dragon and Tiger Qigong Instruction Manual please click here.

About Author

Bruce is passionate about teaching the wisdom from Taoism including qigong, tai chi, healing, martial arts and meditation. He has been doing so for over 50 years and is a lineage holder in the Taoist Water Tradition. You can find out more at www.energyarts.com

14 Comments

I learned Dragon and Tiger from Chris Chappell of Realtaoism, London back in 1997. These exercises are amazing and when contacting a virus 6 months ago I used these exercises as an aid to removal and recovery. I know the teaching was not direct from you Bruce but Chris has I know studied with you for some time. Thank you for passing on this information to the Western World

I have no idea what Guo Lin Family Qigong is. My website will tell you what Dragon and Tiger is about. If Guo Lin was a more traditional form of Qigong I would have most likely heard about it. Many forms of qigong have been created in the past 20 years. People cobble them together, the way people combine 3 karate styles together and call it a new style with a new name. I am not familiar with this particular form of Qigong so I cannot comment on it.

I look forward to the DVD. Learned this from you back in 1987 or so. Remember some of the exercises a little differently from their description in the manual so I am looking forward to the actual video for a comparison

I learned Dragon and Tiger from your book, and after a couple of weeks I could clearly feel qi moving through my body when doing those forms. After more weeks of practice, I had a very tangible feeling of qi movement, which really increased the quality of my other practices!

I read that Dragon & Tiger Chi Gung is not a Taoist form of Chi Gung. Any truth to this? Regardless, Im looking forward to recieving the Instruction manual and finally begininng to build a solid foundation in one particular Chi Gung style.

Qigong practice–mainly standing post meditation–helped me immensely in my successful battles with four bouts of supposedly terminal bone lymphoma cancer in the early nineties. It calmed my mind–taking me out of the fight-or-flight syndrome, which pumps adrenal hormones into the system that could interfere with healing. It energized my body at a time when I couldn’t do Western exercise such as weight-lifting or jogging–the chemo was too fatiguing. And it empowered my will and reinforced it every day with regular practice. In other words, I contributed to the healing process, instead of just depending solely on the chemo and the doctors. Clear 14 years and still practicing!